


the tide, and the flood that resulted (an origin from floor 6)

by ibArche



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Lunch Club (Podcast), SMPLive, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, and sam and frankie! they fit well can’t believe i didn’t think of them, the first ch is now gone because wow was it bad i just had to throw out the whole thing, this was way longer than i planned it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23809909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibArche/pseuds/ibArche
Summary: He couldn’t cry anymore. Crying was a sign of weakness. Weakness got you killed. So, he breathes hard and forces his sobs down.On stage, a 16-year-old put on a flat expression that screamed of bitterness.On stage, Cooper disappeared, and in his place, appeared a boy who felt vitriol, and vitriol alone.On stage, he held his malevolent glare up. If they thought that Cooper Schulz was just going to lay down and die, they had another thing coming.~Congratulations to, ‘cscoop’, Victor of the 62nd Annual Hunger Games!//Rewritten as of 05/01/20
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), in this house we don’t ship real people
Comments: 20
Kudos: 84
Collections: victors' tower (stories from floor 6)





	the tide, and the flood that resulted (an origin from floor 6)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WreakingHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/gifts).



> NOTES: (04/23/20)  
> I'm not the greatest at writing so if some parts seem repetitive, clunky, or doesn't even understand the concept of flow, it's because of that lmao. I had a lot of ideas to dump over the course of reading "as I get older" and it's assorted canon/headcanons other people have come up with, so I wanted to incorporate some of those into a feasible, tangible story. Thanks for reading this piece of shit I came up with and wrote on a frenzy over the course of many a sleepless night lmao. 
> 
> Also, sorry for any spelling/grammar mess-ups. Grammarly can't solve every mistake I made. (Unfortunately.) :)
> 
> NOTES: (05/01/20)  
> Had to rewrite this after reading through Havok's notes about their universe, 'cause I love me some good worldbuilding, and boy, is that some good worldbuilding. *chef's kiss* 
> 
> (I also took this opportunity to fix some parts I thought were funky lol.) :)

Cooper casts one last look back before turning back toward the stage and marching forward. Always forward, never looking back. Looking back just hurt everyone involved. He couldn’t handle it if he always kept looking over his shoulder, so he squared his shoulders and tilted his head upward in one last-ditch attempt to stay dignified.

He couldn’t cry anymore. Crying was a sign of weakness. Weakness got you killed. So, he breathes hard and forces his sobs down. 

On stage, a 16-year-old put on a flat expression that screamed of bitterness. 

On stage, Cooper disappeared, and in his place, appeared a boy who felt vitriol, and vitriol alone. 

On stage, he held his malevolent glare up. If they thought that Cooper Schulz was just going to lay down and die, they had another thing coming.

—

The rest of the reaping ended without ceremony; the only remark he gets from the escort is one of surprise. No one expected him to volunteer. No one expected an untrained teen to volunteer. No one planned that they wouldn’t get a robust and trained tribute that had a chance of winning. And for that, he lets his stony expression crack, just the slightest, to let out a faint, amused smirk. 

He isn’t going to win, and that will be the biggest act of defiance against the Hunger Games, against the Capitol, against Panem, that he can make.

He gulps as he watches his classmates turn their back on him. The group of young-looking careers stares at him, with confusion and shock on their faces, and he doesn’t know why. He catches a glimpse of Amanda and John getting swept away by the crowd, further and further from the stage, and he gets a sinking pit in his stomach. 

He knows that he gets an hour of visitation with them before he leaves, but he can’t help fidgeting.

The escort, who he now knows to be Delight Silver, beckons him to follow her along, eventually leading him to the City Hall. He doesn’t know what else to do but to sit down. The couch is unyielding and hard, made more to look at rather than use, but he runs his fingers through the velvety fabric, in an effort to calm his nerves. 

He sees the tears that stain his shirt before he feels them. With red, puffy eyes, he gets led back to the car and sits as far away as possibly far from Delight as he can.

He ignores her in favor of acknowledging the view of the beach he has that’s passing by while they’re slowly driving away from his small town. 

Of course, it’s not his beach, the cliff rocks jut out in different patterns, and the birds are plump and relaxed, but he tried his best to find comfort in the only thing he knows. 

Once the car stops, he can feel the tension in the car weigh on his shoulders even more. When Delight finally unlocks the door and shoos him away, while picking up her phone, he practically leaps out of the door, desperate to get away. He debates the idea of running away but stays put. He wouldn’t know where to go. Delight is finally done with the phone call, and she walks off toward the train, not saying a single word to him.

He gets acquainted with his mentor, the ever polite Wilbur Soot, victor of the 58th Hunger Games. He seemed too well-meaning and nice, enough so, that Cooper doesn’t trust it. He doesn’t trust him. He lets Delight lead the conversation with Wilbur, and spends his time poking and prodding at the slice of cake around with his fork, too suspicious to eat. A few minutes later, a voice speaks up, distracting him from his thoughts.

“Ah, you must be Cooper, yes? I’m glad to meet you. My name’s Wilbur. I’ll be your mentor for your Hunger Games.” Cooper mutters back a quiet hello, all while staring at the pile of icing and crumbs that used to be cake on his plate. “Not much of a talker, huh? It’s okay. I understand. I’ve been there.”

At this, Cooper gets a clear look at him for the first time. There’s a gentle smile on his face and a shine of pity in his eyes, and Cooper’s cheeks involuntarily flush with color. He feels like he’s being coddled, and he can’t stand it. The only thing he can think to do is to keep his face blank, but he can’t help the scowl that comes to his face. Wilbur quickly looks away and nervously smiles.

“Okay, Cooper, it’ll be hard, but I’m going to give you some advice on how to get through it. Smile. Smiling draws in people. It gives them comfort. It gives them something to root for, something to hope for. It doesn’t matter if it’s fake, but if you get good enough at it, you won’t have to think twice about it,” he says in one breath. 

Cooper just looks down at his hands clenched in his lap, biting at the inside of his cheek, before giving a curt nod. 

— 

When Cooper meets the stylists, he grimaces at the thought of them. Just the idea of them touching him and knowing every single part of his body, flaws and all, gets him nervous. They get their clutches on him soon enough, and while he tries to stay still as possible, he lets his mouth run free, fighting them on everything they give him, if only for the sake of being contrary.

They apply medicated lotions on the rope burns on his hands, they take measurements of every part of his body, they erase every mark on his body that spoke of hard work and years of labor, and Cooper resents them all the more for it. Everything he worked for was gone, and in its place was an unmarked, sanded down, smooth body, that Cooper felt alien in.

A few hours into their sessions, the stylist gives up on including him in the conversation of his costume for the Opening Ceremony, only speaking to her assistants. When they look back at him, clearly whispering behind their gloved hands, Cooper offers a slow, grim smile.

— 

When Cooper first met Wilbur, he thought he wasn’t real. 

Over time, that changed. Cooper now thinks that he’s way too genuine. And that thought flips right back into him lying. 

No one could be that good at acting. He must have some sort of ulterior motive. Something that Cooper already knows is that caring about every single person that passed through a mentor’s halls burned them out. They had to develop habits to distract them. They had to develop habits to forget. 

He’s heard murmurs of mentors snapping, on the way to class as he walked through school hallways, and did his best to shut it out, but that only made it imprint itself into his brain even more.

And it’s because of that, that Cooper starts smiling more. He could learn a thing or two from his mentor anyway, and starts his first lesson with smiling. He’s not the best at shoving aside his bluntness with a pretty mask, but Cooper still begins to subtly nudge him away, smile by smile. 

Wilbur Soot’s brand of charm and likeability was built up over years and years of practice and direction, and Cooper can’t stand anyone who’s so — so complacent. One thing, he notes is that Wilbur never stops smiling. There’s an ever perpetuating grin on his face that Cooper is unnerved of. Over time, Wilbur gets the message and starts approaching him less. 

The conversations they have in passing are all too lack-luster, filled with empty smiles and empty pleasantries. 

Somedays, when insomnia plagues him, and he walks lightly around the hallways, he can hear Wilbur and Delight, talking about anything and everything, and he lingers around the corner, absorbing everything they’re saying. It’s when they bring up his name, with a tone of sorrow, that he walks away, just as quietly as he came, back to his room.

He starts throwing himself into stations whenever the doors to the Training Center are open. He isn’t going to let people he barely knows pity him.

The trainer, a man called Technoblade, hair painted a muddy pinkish-brown, introduces each topic to them and speaks with an amount of deliberate confidence that seemed earned, unlike the superficiality that other Capitol representatives have. 

Techno commands himself with an aura of respect, and moves with intent and purpose, never twitching a finger if he doesn’t have to.

He may speak in paragraphs, direct and redirect the topic over and over, and use a level language most don’t understand, but Cooper understands the idea of his speech. 

Choose to conquer, or choose to die. 

Coopers heard rumors of him. Technoblade, the 56th victor, who started as a Capitol wildfire sensation since he was first announced. Only a few minutes into his games, he became the person to watch. 

Cooper didn’t care about the games or its tributes, ignoring it in favor of perfecting his editing, but still, he knows of Technoblade’s legacy. He knows now that he settled into the job of Head Trainer.

Cooper’s family, who weren’t one to watch Twitch, muttered his name over nights of cold fish stew the nights that they were home. 

Cooper is still, to say the least, intimidated.

So, when he spends all his extra time at the Training Center, if only to keep practicing and to focus his anger towards training dummies, it’s because of this need to be better. He throws tridents and spears with purpose and intent, half to adjust to the feeling and weight of the Capitol’s versions in his hands, and half to hone his still waning precision. 

When he gets good enough to stand a good distance away from the dummy, and pierces it straight in the eye, he knows he’s got it down. 

— 

The stylists finally decide on something for him. They create a whole new identity, a whole new person, for Cooper to become. They have him dress in cool, muted tones. No doubt that his outfit is comfortable, but it’s almost too comfortable. The cotton inside the white hoodie they push him into is soft, and the feeling of it brushing against his skin creates goosebumps that rise along his neck. 

They play into his origins from District 4, and paint gills that seem almost like slits along the sides of his neck, painting smatterings of scales across his face, neck, arms, legs, anywhere that the Capitol audience might see. 

They give him jeans, the feeling of the fabric alien on his legs, too used to baggy sweatpants. Straight black and cuffed at the end, it gives him an aura of a formal type of causality, which he guesses was the feeling they wanted for him. He has black gloves that have sheer fabric branching between his fingers, spreading down to where they meet his palm, resembling webbed hands.

They tell him to be laidback, confident, and a little dim, with a soft side, playing off his bitter comments as quirks of his character instead of biting anger. They soften his personality, and like the persona of a caretaker he has with his neighbors, he slips into this role right away. 

He has a less pronounced accent than most in District 4, but they tell him to accentuate it. They tell him that Capitol sponsors would favor him more if he was more like a “traditional District 4” tribute, and played to their usual tastes of winners. And so, he does.

Cooper takes all this with stride. He takes all their suggestions, and molds himself to fit them, and for that, he is going to survive. It doesn’t matter if he isn’t the same person when he comes back out. He knows he’s being a hypocrite, that he’s plugging himself into a role that doesn’t reflect him, but he doesn’t know who that is anymore.

He is going to fight to survive, and that is all that matters.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

— 

It’s the day of interviews, and Cooper is nervous as all hell. 

Even if he doesn’t watch Twitch, he knows of Pyrocynical, winner of the 50th Hunger Games, and the subsequent television host slash announcer. The literal living legend would be introducing him to the entire Capitol. Based on his sole opinion, he could be the deciding factor between Cooper getting sponsors or not.

When they announce his name, Cooper stiffly marches onto the stage, despite his persona, who is supposed to be displaying a calm, easy going-ness. It’s because of that, that he forces his shoulders to untense, and turns his half-march into a slow meander. 

He can practically see his grimace being broadcasted across Panem, and remembers to smooth it out into a half-smile and half-lidded eyes, almost as if it’s too much effort to keep them open. Perfectly in character.

Pyrocynical must have had practice from the last three years of turning rags to riches, as he somehow spins his simple origins, simple answers, simple being, into someone who’s deserving to be watched. Cooper doesn’t know whether to be repulsed or thankful. 

The only time that he allows his expression to fall is when Pyro asks about the stakes of it all. “So, I’m sure our audience is wondering, who do you have waiting for you back at home?” Cooper talks about Sam and Frankie, and this is the only time that he feels his half-smile disappear into something more genuine. It was nice to talk about home, even though anger still boiled in his stomach at the thought. 

“Frankie is the girl you volunteered for, right?”

Cooper can only nod, feeling the words getting stuck in his throat as he tries to swallow them down. Niall lays a tender hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “I’m sure that she’s very grateful and proud of you right now.” Oh, if only. “Let’s say this, Cooper. If you had the chance to say anything to Frankie and Sam right now, what would you say?”

He flounders a bit, before falling back into character of relaxed confidence. “I don’t regret it.” He thinks that the message is subtle enough that no one from the Capitol will ever figure out what he means, but enough of a reminder that they won’t forget.

Pyrocynical eyes widen just a bit, before gaining a sly grin. “Now that we’ve heard about home… What about a significant other, ey?” he adds, raising his elbow to tap Cooper in the side, winking exaggeratedly, and Cooper swallows hard. Usually, he would stray away from topics like this, avoid the matter with practiced ease and speed. He figures this could play into his favor. 

He spouts out some bullshit about family and friends being more than enough for him, that he was too busy with learning his parents’ fishmonger craft. He realizes that home-bred honesty and admiration sold well in the Capitol. That they didn’t have many truths to build upon. The liked it like they would with any quaint little thing, condescending with their tones and awe, but that was why they liked it. It was small, and pretty, and idealistic, and it was enough for them. 

“You’ve got big shoes to fill, yeah? Don’t tell any of the other tributes,” he says, leaning towards Cooper, as if he was going to share a secret, “but I’ll make sure to catch up on your Twitch stream.”

Cooper forces a chuckle out as he says, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” before turning his head to send a conspiratorial wink toward the audience, a playful smirk on his face. It’s just before the buzzer sounds, loud and piercing in his ear.

Niall lets out a loud laugh before saying, “Cooper, you wound me! Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it! District 4’s very own Cooper Schulz!” Cooper stands up, lungs aching after forcing laughter, and half-smiles at the crowd. He shakes Pyrocynical’s hand, before walking off toward the curtains.

As he strolls off stage, he offers lazy waves toward the crowd, and they’re eating it all up. Flickering his eyes up, he can see someone unfamiliar on the screen that’s broadcasting the stage. A boy is staring back at him, a shine of determination and anger in his dull eyes. Cooper remembers advice that was given to him what felt like ages ago, and smiles. 

It’s biting, and somewhat bitter, but it’s still a smile, and if he keeps it up, he can fool the Capitol long enough to survive.

That’s all he wants.

To survive. 

— 

All his training inevitably pays off when he gets a safe ‘7’ for his training score. Not too high, nor too low. Perfect.

Wilbur gives him a warm grin, while Delight claps her gloved hands, chirping out praise. She calls for an avox, who brings already prepared flutes of bubbly, carbonated drinks on a silver tray, passing them one by one to the stylists, Delight, Wilbur, and finally, Cooper. 

His stomach can’t handle the drink, but he clinks glasses with everyone anyways. The little bit of pride that he allows himself to feel is free on his face in the form of a small grin.

— 

When the interviewee asks him to put in his tag, Cooper stops. 

With shaky fingers, he inputs the name, “cscoop,” the name of his old Youtube channel. It’s something that’s been stuck with him for a long time, and he wants some part of his old self to be with him in the games. He thinks it would be a fitting way to end his arc. Right back at the beginning.

He spun his initials and the first part of his name into something catchy, something quick, and something that has the feeling of a need to win.

Something that wouldn’t be forgotten.

Cooper Schulz was born under rules and regulations, of following orders, of following his parents, of following the Capitol. The skies were filled with the sun and brilliant, blinding rays, and its heat left behind his role and who he had to become.

Cooper can only try his best to listen.

Cscoop was born under the bright blue seas of ambition and opportunity, following no one but himself as a natural-born winner. The skies were clogged with rainstorms and thunder, and its flood left opportunities to be better than he ever was. 

Cscoop will only do his best to succeed.

— 

And he does.


End file.
